I'm bored, and was curious what everyone views on the afterlife. Obviously, no one knows what, if any thing, lies beyond the border of life and death, but why not discuss the different views on the after life. I'll try to keep this as respectful as possible (I'm not anti religion, just so you know) and hopefully everyone else will do the same. So feel free to refute my views, or simply state your own. :D

I personally don't see the point in an after life. I'm a Deist teetering towards agnosticism, and so I don't hold any religious beliefs to be true, but when you step back and look at things, does the afterlife make sense? What I mean is, why would God create a world such as the one we live in, only for us to end up as some different type of being (spirit, ghost, etc) when this life is over. Why create us in a world like this, and tell us that we must believe in him, and worship him in order to go to heaven, and if you don't, you'll go to hell. Especially when religious beliefs are entirely subjective. There are more religions than you can shake a stick at. And only one religious belief is true.

Our world is full of temptations, from violent ones, to greedy ones, to lustful ones, etc. Why create a world where we must worship God, and yet never appear to us. Why make a world so easy to be led astray in, and punish them for that. In other words, some people are created to endure an eternity of suffering. Evil people don't always enjoy what they do. But they do it, for whatever reason. So their earthly life is full of suffering, and their afterlife is full of eternal suffering. Why even create people if lots will spend eternity suffering?

Obviously, we all make the choices in our lives, and any decision we make, is entirely up to us. But that's exactly why I don't believe in an afterlife, or am at least very skeptical of one. Why not simply create an eternity of happiness for people? Why create such a flawed species, where some are destined for an eternity of hell (literally).

As for heaven, what is so great about it? No one can ever really say what heaven is, apparently this afterlife God talks about isn't really worth describing for us. I was taught you spend eternity in praising and adoring God (or else burn in hell). But is that really heaven? I don't want to spend my eternity simply worshipping something. Furthermore, we are no longer human in heaven. Happiness is a human emotion. Without our human bodies, how do we "enjoy" heaven? Different people enjoy different things. I personally enjoy music, baseball, family/friends, etc. I can't listen to music, watch baseball, or spend time with family/friends without a human body. And if our heavenly beings are similar to our human bodies, what's the point of our earthly lives?

One more thing on the subject of human lives. We have the human nature to become attached to people. Our family, our friends. We spend our entire life with people, and yet there's that possibility that the person you love, is spending eternity roasting in hell. So, why would I want to become attached to humans (Jesus taught us to love our neighbors) if I may not see them in the afterlife?

Again, why not simply create us in paradise, and skip this earthly life thing? I just don't see the point in the afterlife. In my opinion, an all loving God would put us in a place where we could enjoy ourselves without harming others or ourselves. I certainly enjoy life on earth, and don't plan on leaving any time soon, but I don't see the point in an afterlife.

So anyway, what are your views on the afterlife?

The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of people's money."_Margaret Thatcher

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."_Thomas Jefferson

"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."_Thomas Jefferson

"It is easier to fool someone than to convince them that they have been fooled."-Mark Twain

Complete agnosticism. I could speculate about what it will be like, but I know absolutely nothing about it, and I would probably just be making up stuff to talk about, which is disingenuous. Just because of the epistemic constraints, "afterlife" isn't in my ontology, so I can't even have a position on it (because the concept is basically empty, apart from "what happens after you die").

What happens to the consciousness of a complex robot when the batteries fail? It doesn't go to heaven or hell. It ceases to exist.

We are biological robots. Also consider that if there was such a thing as the soul, then no body would ever reanimate unless its soul was present. Yet, we can revive dead people with an electric shock, and they operate once more.

Why do people want heaven and hell anyway? Don't you want one day to simply end it all? Just stop being conscious, and put an end to the inherent stress of existing....

The whole afterlife concept wreaks of human invention.

"A stupid despot may constrain his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician binds them even more strongly with the chain of their own ideas" - Michel Foucault

At 6/24/2012 5:14:50 PM, 000ike wrote:What happens to the consciousness of a complex robot when the batteries fail? It doesn't go to heaven or hell. It ceases to exist.

We are biological robots. Also consider that if there was such a thing as the soul, then no body would ever reanimate unless its soul was present. Yet, we can revive dead people with an electric shock, and they operate once more.

I've often wondered about that as well.

Why do people want heaven and hell anyway? Don't you want one day to simply end it all? Just stop being conscious, and put an end to the inherent stress of existing....

The whole afterlife concept wreaks of human invention.

I agree, what's the point. We have a life now, so why not take advantage of it, instead of preparing for some "other life" that probably doesn't exist.

The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of people's money."_Margaret Thatcher

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."_Thomas Jefferson

"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."_Thomas Jefferson

"It is easier to fool someone than to convince them that they have been fooled."-Mark Twain

At 6/24/2012 5:08:36 PM, Cody_Franklin wrote:Complete agnosticism. I could speculate about what it will be like, but I know absolutely nothing about it, and I would probably just be making up stuff to talk about, which is disingenuous. Just because of the epistemic constraints, "afterlife" isn't in my ontology, so I can't even have a position on it (because the concept is basically empty, apart from "what happens after you die").

I understand what you mean. I just think about these things when I'm bored lol. I don't really care either way, just curious about other peoples' opinions. :)

The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of people's money."_Margaret Thatcher

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."_Thomas Jefferson

"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."_Thomas Jefferson

"It is easier to fool someone than to convince them that they have been fooled."-Mark Twain

At 6/24/2012 5:08:36 PM, Cody_Franklin wrote:Complete agnosticism. I could speculate about what it will be like, but I know absolutely nothing about it, and I would probably just be making up stuff to talk about, which is disingenuous. Just because of the epistemic constraints, "afterlife" isn't in my ontology, so I can't even have a position on it (because the concept is basically empty, apart from "what happens after you die").

What a crock.We know a lot of things about how life works. We absorb oxygen in through our mouth into our lungs and food into our stomachs. Our heart receives the oxygen (layman explanation) and pumps oxygenated blood all around our body. Our brains are constantly firing electrical impulses causing everything about us to function; personality, bodily systems, everything. We know it happens in the brain because there are dozens of examples of brain damage causing changes to personalities.When we die, our bodies shut down and all our important organs stop functioning. Since no one has successfully shown how a mind can function outside of a body,

Based on this, I'm assuming death is like shutting down a computer. You can restart the computer, as long as all the components function. If one component fails, the computer may still work, albeit less than optimally. Some organs (Brain - CPU, Heart - Power Supply) are crucial and the body/computer won't function without them.

The long and the short of it is that people are completely unwilling to buy into the idea that we should forgo pleasure. The concept of an afterlife is the perfect mechanism to convince people that their temporary pleasure could lead to eternal suffering, but forgoing that temporary pleasure could lead to eternal pleasure later.

An "afterlife" has no basis in fact whatsoever, and is completely a concoction of religion/mythology to solve the underlying problems of asceticism and, more generally, intrinsic fear of dying.

Were it the case that the afterlife existed and was really that great a place, one would expect to see suicides everywhere. Anticipating this problem, religious leaders put their thinking caps on and decided that suicide is evil, so you can't take the shortcut to the afterlife.

Even the righteous - if you've lived a *perfect* life and are guaranteed to go to heaven, you would still attempt to stop someone from murdering you, right?

At 6/24/2012 5:14:50 PM, 000ike wrote:What happens to the consciousness of a complex robot when the batteries fail? It doesn't go to heaven or hell. It ceases to exist.

We are biological robots. Also consider that if there was such a thing as the soul, then no body would ever reanimate unless its soul was present. Yet, we can revive dead people with an electric shock, and they operate once more.

Why do people want heaven and hell anyway? Don't you want one day to simply end it all? Just stop being conscious, and put an end to the inherent stress of existing....

The whole afterlife concept wreaks of human invention.

"The whole afterlife concept wreaks of human invention."

Bingo. Don't want to die? Coping with the death of a loved on? Depressed at lack of justice built into the system in the real world? Don't worry, we can just trick ourselves into believing death isn't real and it's just a transition! **Sigh**

At 6/24/2012 5:08:36 PM, Cody_Franklin wrote:Complete agnosticism. I could speculate about what it will be like, but I know absolutely nothing about it, and I would probably just be making up stuff to talk about, which is disingenuous. Just because of the epistemic constraints, "afterlife" isn't in my ontology, so I can't even have a position on it (because the concept is basically empty, apart from "what happens after you die").

What a crock.

I don't think so, TV.

We know a lot of things about how life works. We absorb oxygen in through our mouth into our lungs and food into our stomachs. Our heart receives the oxygen (layman explanation) and pumps oxygenated blood all around our body. Our brains are constantly firing electrical impulses causing everything about us to function; personality, bodily systems, everything. We know it happens in the brain because there are dozens of examples of brain damage causing changes to personalities.

Turns out, you're just throwing the word "know" around a lot. One, "electricity fires around the brain" isn't an explanation of consciousness. Prima facie, it's more like a correlated observation. What you can observe is that A) consciousness happens, and B) during this process, neurons fire off bursts of energy at each other. You can't really say much about the causal arrow. I mean, on this approach, the body is just a big processing center that receives and interprets external stimuli. I mean, it could very well be that "minds" or whatever do exist independently, in the form of a soul, or information, or energy, or something else we don't know about, but have to be bound to a physical body to make conscious subjectivity possible. Really, we can't have certainty about what happens after death, or whether it's even proper to call it "death". I'm not really advancing any conclusions, but I also don't think we can draw the line here and say we've got it all figured out.

When we die, our bodies shut down and all our important organs stop functioning. Since no one has successfully shown how a mind can function outside of a body

Argument from ignorance, bro?

Based on this, I'm assuming death is like shutting down a computer. You can restart the computer, as long as all the components function. If one component fails, the computer may still work, albeit less than optimally. Some organs (Brain - CPU, Heart - Power Supply) are crucial and the body/computer won't function without them.

Best you can do then is to say that a dead subject can't discourse with anyone. That's probably verifiable, but, if you're looking at this as a question of rigor, then you have to concede that we can't have a coherent concept of "experiencing death"--it could be nothingness, in which case we wouldn't ever know, or it could be somethingness, in which case, given the prerequisite of death, we probably can't talk about.

I'm sure you could propose a thought experiment where you kill someone, then bring them back to life, but you can nevertheless introduce a bunch of peculiar constraints on the reliability of that person's testimony. :P If they can't remember their own dreams, or their lunch from three days ago, how do we trust them to remember and relay whether there was an experience of death, much less what that experience's details were?

There's a fair amont of anecdotes of people experiencing the afterlife. Most of them describe a state that transcends our physical and sensory perceptions of the world.

The afterlife can't be objectively studied because it's supposed to be metaphysical, on a different domain so to speak. It can only be experienced through the introduction of some other element. C.S. Lewis called this element Magic in his children's stories.

At 6/24/2012 7:18:05 PM, Steelerman6794 wrote:There's a fair amont of anecdotes of people experiencing the afterlife. Most of them describe a state that transcends our physical and sensory perceptions of the world.

The afterlife can't be objectively studied because it's supposed to be metaphysical, on a different domain so to speak. It can only be experienced through the introduction of some other element. C.S. Lewis called this element Magic in his children's stories.

I know it can't be studied, I'm just curious what others thought about it. It's certainly a fascinating subject :D

The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of people's money."_Margaret Thatcher

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."_Thomas Jefferson

"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."_Thomas Jefferson

"It is easier to fool someone than to convince them that they have been fooled."-Mark Twain

What is the point of hell if it's temporary? Or are you suggesting purgatory?

The short of it would be punishment and reformation/rehabilitation.

So, purgatory basically? Purgatory is supposed to be the cleansing of the soul before one enters heaven. It is described as a suffering, because one feels distant from God, almost like a hell, except one knows he'll enter heaven eventually. At least that's what I was taught.

The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of people's money."_Margaret Thatcher

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."_Thomas Jefferson

"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."_Thomas Jefferson

"It is easier to fool someone than to convince them that they have been fooled."-Mark Twain

The Fool: most likely but anyclaims about it are beyond possible knowledge.

I think its the afterlife is a myth we have created for ourself to escapt the obsurdity of living just to die. Religion serves to create a distcraction from that notion.I think it is the MAIN drive behind them. It to feel that they are saved from death.

But I urge people to contemplate these thoughts. What if there is a purpose, a teleology, that we can't see, because we are blinded by pop-Science, Religion, and Bad philosophy.For how do we know of what purpose means in the first place, in order that we understand what we mean when we talk about it?(But what if is a meaning life a teology, that give it meaning. I could ag

"The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant's existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature in place of the blossom. These stages are not merely differentiated; they supplant one another as being incompatible with one another." G. W. F. HEGEL

What is the point of hell if it's temporary? Or are you suggesting purgatory?

The short of it would be punishment and reformation/rehabilitation.

So, purgatory basically? Purgatory is supposed to be the cleansing of the soul before one enters heaven. It is described as a suffering, because one feels distant from God, almost like a hell, except one knows he'll enter heaven eventually. At least that's what I was taught.

In one sense, yes. In another, no. AFAIK, thosee who believe in purgatory believe that the punishment inflicted on those after judgement are purgative in some type of sense where they cleanse (or help to cleanse). I don't think that's the case but I do think those pains can help in correcting someone and being learned from which leads towards a reformation/rehabiliation of the character. And I think that purgatory, as traditionally conceived in Catholicism, is for Christians, isn't it? I don't think that's the case with hell.

What is the point of hell if it's temporary? Or are you suggesting purgatory?

The short of it would be punishment and reformation/rehabilitation.

So, purgatory basically? Purgatory is supposed to be the cleansing of the soul before one enters heaven. It is described as a suffering, because one feels distant from God, almost like a hell, except one knows he'll enter heaven eventually. At least that's what I was taught.

In one sense, yes. In another, no. AFAIK, thosee who believe in purgatory believe that the punishment inflicted on those after judgement are purgative in some type of sense where they cleanse (or help to cleanse). I don't think that's the case but I do think those pains can help in correcting someone and being learned from which leads towards a reformation/rehabiliation of the character. And I think that purgatory, as traditionally conceived in Catholicism, is for Christians, isn't it? I don't think that's the case with hell.

Catholicism teaches that hell is permanent. While the fires of purgatory burn, it inevitably leads to heaven.

I always saw them as the same punishment, but purgatory is reserve for those who have hope of rehabilitation. Hell is for those you do not.

What is the point of hell if it's temporary? Or are you suggesting purgatory?

The short of it would be punishment and reformation/rehabilitation.

So, purgatory basically? Purgatory is supposed to be the cleansing of the soul before one enters heaven. It is described as a suffering, because one feels distant from God, almost like a hell, except one knows he'll enter heaven eventually. At least that's what I was taught.

In one sense, yes. In another, no. AFAIK, thosee who believe in purgatory believe that the punishment inflicted on those after judgement are purgative in some type of sense where they cleanse (or help to cleanse). I don't think that's the case but I do think those pains can help in correcting someone and being learned from which leads towards a reformation/rehabiliation of the character. And I think that purgatory, as traditionally conceived in Catholicism, is for Christians, isn't it? I don't think that's the case with hell.

I see what you're saying. I was raised Catholic, and the way I was taught was, it's either Heaven, Purgatory (which is where most people go first, in order to be cleansed for heaven), or hell. I've known many Christians who don't believe in purgatory, and just in hell, and even those who believe in purgatory, but not hell.

So what you're saying is, you believe that there's a hell, where we go to become rehabilitated from our sinful life? But it isn't an eternal hell?

The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of people's money."_Margaret Thatcher

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."_Thomas Jefferson

"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."_Thomas Jefferson

"It is easier to fool someone than to convince them that they have been fooled."-Mark Twain

What is the point of hell if it's temporary? Or are you suggesting purgatory?

The short of it would be punishment and reformation/rehabilitation.

So, purgatory basically? Purgatory is supposed to be the cleansing of the soul before one enters heaven. It is described as a suffering, because one feels distant from God, almost like a hell, except one knows he'll enter heaven eventually. At least that's what I was taught.

In one sense, yes. In another, no. AFAIK, thosee who believe in purgatory believe that the punishment inflicted on those after judgement are purgative in some type of sense where they cleanse (or help to cleanse). I don't think that's the case but I do think those pains can help in correcting someone and being learned from which leads towards a reformation/rehabiliation of the character. And I think that purgatory, as traditionally conceived in Catholicism, is for Christians, isn't it? I don't think that's the case with hell.

Catholicism teaches that hell is permanent. While the fires of purgatory burn, it inevitably leads to heaven.

I always saw them as the same punishment, but purgatory is reserve for those who have hope of rehabilitation. Hell is for those you do not.

That's what I was taught.

The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of people's money."_Margaret Thatcher

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."_Thomas Jefferson

"The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."_Thomas Jefferson

"It is easier to fool someone than to convince them that they have been fooled."-Mark Twain

At 6/24/2012 5:14:50 PM, 000ike wrote:Don't you want one day to simply end it all? Just stop being conscious, and put an end to the inherent stress of existing....

I don't know about anyone else, but personally, there's the whole sensorial aspect... pleasure, orgasms, and all that... life and reality... the general act of existing, is quite fantastic, and full of very exciting possibilities. And then, there's curiosity -- where things will go. I mean, the difference between now and 100 years ago is astounding, and we're advancing at an exponentially greater rate. I doubt it's unimaginable and unbelievable unless seen, what the world will be in 100 years.